Five Stages
by UnwrittenPages
Summary: One explosion, One heroic move and a rescue of the damned, led Caroline Forbes to be eternally blind. We get in insight in the relationships she shares with the others who help her through her troubles. How this accident would bring her closer to the most unexpected person - Klaus/Caroline, Stefan/Caroline, Elijah/Caroline, Bonnie/Caroline/Elena etc.


AN: here's a random one-shot I created. I really don't know what inspired me to write this but I hope you all would like it. Its a rather lengthy one-shot, or not I don't know, it's the longest I've written at least. Anyways, before I start rambling, here's the story and I hope you like it.

Also a special note. THANK YOU **angellus08** and_ cicadaa_ and anyone else who liked, reblogged and etc on tumblr for promoting this story. My little heart literally exploded into a million pieces when I read it. I can't thank you enough! Bless your beautiful hearts

* * *

The ear piercing explosion sent the bodies flying across the plane. The irritating ringing echoes through their ears and their vision are blurring. Glancing over their shoulders the bright igniting citrus flame dances around the building, monstrously roaring, blinding them. The heat radiates out and they can feel the heat burning their skins. Elena frantically looks around still holding tightly on Bonnie's shaking hand.

"Where's Caroline?" Elena yells in panic. Everyone's head shoots up and scans around the rumble to notice that the bubbly blonde is nowhere in sight.

Emerging from the flames is a disheveled Klaus carrying an unconscious body. Klaus' outline is blurred into the back ground and his figure became a haze but they notice quickly that Klaus is carrying Caroline's wrecked body. After realization, Elena and Bonnie jolt up on their feet and are being held back by the Salvatore brothers as their screams are drowned out by the sirens. The fire calms down but Caroline remains a rag doll and their worry only accumulate by this point.

"_Run!" She yelled pushing him aside, mustering up all of her supernatural strength to shove him out of the way. _

"_What the bloody hell was that—" Klaus' speech was cut off my sudden booming sound of an explosion. _

"_Caroline!" _

"Caroline stay with me!" Bonnie shouts.

"Come on Care! Just a little bit longer!" Elena screams through her tears.

The flickering lights are all Caroline sees but it slowly fades to black. She can hear their distant incoherent voices yelling at her. She notices through the haze mahogany walls and archaic decorations of the Salvatore boarding house. Everything becomes colder and she feels disconnected as if piece by piece her soul is being torn away from her. She starts to lose all feelings and slowly loses herself to the dark abyss. An undead being is once again experiencing the feeling of dying, the bitter irony in that.

Caroline's hand drops at the side of the bed paralleling the plummeting actions of her beloved friends' hearts. Bonnie's hands hesitantly fall to her sides and she ceases her chanting while Elena's hand shoots up to her mouth to cover up the sounds of her sobs. Stefan reaches out and places a comforting hand on Elena's shoulder and looks anywhere but at the lifeless body of his former friend.

Klaus punches the wall causing the occupants of the room to jump. After a few moments, they see his figure storming out of the room and barge back in with lightning speed holding onto a pair of jumper cables. They all look at him in bewilderment before he stables two medal rods into Caroline's chest, connecting the jumper cables to them.

"What are you doing?" Elena screams but Klaus ignores her and continues sending electrical waves through Caroline's limp body. Moments later, Caroline is gasping for air and her body jerks up. Her hand searches her chest before pulling the metal rods out wincing at the pain. Panic is written across her face as clear as day and her breathing become ragged. Her hands reach up to her eye and frantically touching it and they all stand around her, staring in puzzlement.

"Care…" Bonnie says placing a hand on her arm.

"Why can't I see?" Caroline says before the tears reluctantly fall from her eyes.

"What do you mean she is blind?" Damon asks incredulously.

"She's a vampire. Any damages to her eye would heal." Klaus states.

"Yes but these damages were created by magic. The explosion was created by a witch. The flame that got into Caroline's eye had the residue of the powder from the potion. Therefore…"

"Caroline's eternally blind." Stefan says completing Bonnie's sentence. Bonnie nods softly before leaning against the wall and letting out a heavy sigh. Stefan's hands curl into a fist before exploding at Klaus. He grabs Klaus by the collar and slams his body to the wall.

"What happened in there?" Stefan yells.

"Come on man, let him go." Damon says pulling Stefan off, "But what did happen in there hybrid dick?" He adds, glaring at Klaus with his icy blue orbs.

"This girl pushed me out of the way." Klaus replies straightening out his shirt.

"So it was an attack to you?" Stefan remarks and Klaus' scornful glare daggers into Stefan.

"I didn't see any of you lot around. Where were you when Caroline was in danger?" Klaus retorts.

"You listen here—"

Damon's retaliation is interrupted by the breaking sound of glass and Caroline's voice swearing. They all run into the room and sees Caroline leaning against a desk and shards of glass scattered on the floor. Bonnie and Elena rush toward Caroline's side.

"I can hear everything by the way." Caroline states and they fall into a heavy silence, "I'm blind?" She adds softly.

"I can't be blind. I just can't…" Caroline says breathlessly. Her knees give in but Bonnie and Elena are there to catch her as she cries.

_According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, when an ill patient undergoes traumatic events, they suffer through the five stages of grief. The first stage is: __**denial**_.

It's been a week and Caroline remains blind, it is like a mast shadow is continuously covering her eyes. She stays in the room most of the days getting used to the feeling of different material and attempt to maneuver herself around the room with minimal damage. Elijah offered to help teach her how to read Braille and currently Caroline is having great difficulty. She releases a heavy exasperated sigh and shoves the books aside while Elijah is pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Caroline…are you purposely refusing to learn Braille?" Elijah says.

"Why do you even know how to read Braille?" Caroline deflects.

"That doesn't answer my question Caroline."

"Look Elijah. I appreciate that you are trying to help me and all but I am not going to be blind forever. Bonnie will find a spell that will cure me and I will be back to normal. So Braille is going to be of no use to me." Caroline says. Elijah notices how her muscles tense, they way her head is cast lower than usual and her hands clenching onto the sheets tighter.

"Caroline, it's been a week—"

"So? It takes months at times for Bonnie to look for a spell! A week is nothing comparing to the time when we tried to do the privacy spell. It took us over three months to get it right." Caroline intervenes. Her voice goes up an octave and becomes more panic.

"Maybe we should take a break." Elijah suggests.

"You should just give up over all. I'm going to see again." Caroline says and she can hear Elijah let out a sigh.

"How is she?" Elena asks.

"In denial." Elijah says.

Caroline can hear them conversing in front of the door. She may be blind but she is not deaf and they have forgotten that she also has vampire enhanced hearing. She can feel the rage boiling up in her. She takes the book by her side and throws it across the room. She was expecting a few broken things and a loud sound but she got nothing but the silence.

"That could be dangerous love." Klaus remarks holding the book in his hand.

"Klaus. What do you want?" Caroline asks irately.

"Heard you are having troubles with Braille."

"I'm not having troubles I just refuse to learn something that will be useless to me." Caroline argues.

"You know love. Being blind isn't all too bad. All your other senses are heightened."

"Tell me that when _you_ are actually blind too okay?" Caroline retorts.

"Just maybe, don't you think you should just accept it? Saves us all a lot of trouble." Klaus says and Caroline can feel the bed rise up a little from the new found weight on the bed. She can smell the musk scent of the woods surrounding her.

"I'm not accepting something that is not _permanent_."

"And if it was? What will you do? Are you going to continuously sulk on this bed? Learn Braille and stop being a brat. Elijah is offering his help so—"

"Shut up!" Caroline yells cutting Klaus off, "I will be fine! I will see again!" She states with determination dripping from her voice.

"You are being foolish sweetheart. There things that cannot be changed and these unfortunately happen to be one of them." Klaus says and the volume of his voice rises a little.

"Why are you here?" Caroline says, biting her lip to avoid the tears escaping her eyes.

"I brought lunch and clean clothes." Klaus says.

"As you do every day for the past week. For all I know you are giving me horrendous clothes." Caroline quips.

"You'll just have to trust me love." Klaus says handing the clothes and blood bag out. After a while he realizes that Caroline hasn't noticed that he had his hand out, he inwardly cursed at himself before grabbing her hand – much to her shock – and placing them on her clothes and blood bag, "There. Cashmere."

"I don't own anything Cashmere." Caroline states.

"You do now love."

She listens to his footsteps walking towards the door, "Tell Elijah that I'm sorry." Caroline adds so softly it is just above a breath but Klaus hears it loud and clear.

_**Anger**__ becomes rage. _

It's been a month and a half and Caroline is still blind. Caroline hears the words coming out of Bonnie's lips with perfect clarity. The words struck into her like an icicle through the heart. Everyone falls into a pregnant silence as they watch Caroline carefully. Her bottom lips is quivering and her hands are trembling.

"Caroline…" Elena says softly.

Caroline lets out an ear piercing scream causing everyone to jump back. She flips the desk in front of her over and she falls to the ground, punching the floor. Klaus shoves past everybody else and strides by her side to pick her up off the ground. Caroline is kicking and screaming in Klaus' arms but he is stronger by a whole other league. He is constricting her tightly, squeezing the energy out of her. Her screaming dies out and her body gives up. The room is now filled with the soft sobs emitting out of Caroline.

"Why…why is this happening to me?" Caroline starts off softly.

"Care." Bonnie says with sympathy dripping out of her voice.

"I did everything!" She shouts trying to escape from Klaus' entrapment but it became futile as she is forced back into his arms, "I forgave dick head Damon for using me!" Damon's head casts down to avoid everyone's glares as a sheepish smile pulls on his lips, "I helped through the Tyler's transformations even when it could've killed me. I forgave Alaric for killing my father and I did everything I was told to keep Elena safe," Elena wants to reach out to Caroline but Stefan holds her back, shaking his head at her to stop her from proceeding, "I even saved Klaus! The damned from death! Did I do something so terrible that makes me deserving to be blind…forever?" Caroline is now breathless from all her yelling and they all look at her with sad looks on their faces. Klaus glances down at the worn out blonde in his arms with the odd feeling of guilt creeping up on him unexpectedly and most of all against his will.

"You did _nothing _wrong Caroline, you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time." Bonnie says. Caroline lets out a dark laugh that sends shivers down everybody's spine.

"Of course because once again, girly, little, second best Caroline is _collateral damage_." Caroline says bitterly, "Fuck this!" She yells while kicking the chair in front of her across the room.

_The third stage is said to be __**bargaining**__, where one will trade anything to regain normalcy. _

"I'm a witch Caroline. Not a doctor." Bonnie says.

"And a witch did this to me not a doctor." Caroline says.

"So you want to use my magic to enter your head, literally to fix the nerves in your eye." Bonnie repeats skeptically.

"Exactly." Caroline says grinning.

"Caroline this is a _very_ dangerous procedure. I mean I can be messing with your frontal lobe and that means your personality may drastically change." Bonnie says.

"Oh well, never liked my current personality all too much, might change for the better. I would suffer a few personality alters just so I can see again Bonnie."

"Listen Caroline," Bonnie starts grabbing onto Caroline's hands, "I'm not going to do it—"

"But why? I'll give you _anything_! I'll do _anything_." Caroline pleads.

"No Caroline. You don't understand the dangers of what you are asking me to do. If one thing goes wrong your brain might actually…burn or melt or explode or something…literally." Bonnie explains.

"Please Bonnie. Please." Caroline begs.

"I'm sorry Care but I can't. There's too much at risk."

"Fine, whatever."

"I'm sorry Caroline."

"I get it. It's fine. If you don't mind now, I need to change so please leave." Caroline says looking to her side to avoid Bonnie's saddened gaze that is boring into her skin.

"Care—"

"Just please Bonnie…please."

_**Depression**__ causes a person to plummet into a void_.

"Caroline." Elena says pushing Caroline's hair behind her ear. Caroline flinches away from Elena's touch and remains silent. It had been almost two months and in the past few days Caroline had fallen into a bottomless pit. She did not talk, she barely ate and she remained immobile. She spends her days sitting on the lounge chair staring vacantly out on the opened window. The breeze running through her hair, the birds singing and the smell of the forest all alive around her but she cannot see it. She feels like she had fallen into an empty void where the walls are starting to close in, trapping her and breathing becomes harder. She wanted an escape from all of this pain –

She hears a knocking on the door but ignores it, nonetheless the door swings open.

"Caroline, it's—"

"I know your voice Stefan and your scent." Caroline intervenes.

"How are you doing?" Stefan asks.

"Peachy." Caroline replies with bitter sarcasm.

"What are you thinking about?" Stefan asks.

"That I want to die." Caroline says blatantly.

"Don't joke about things like that Caroline." Stefan says, "You'll break a lot of hearts speaking like that." He quips.

"What a shame, sadly I'm not much in a joking mood lately." Caroline says.

"This is your vampire emotions on over load Caroline. Your depression is amplified. Please don't think about it." Stefan says sitting on the window sill across of Caroline who remains blasé to his presence.

"No Stefan. This is _my_ emotions. When Katherine killed me, a normal life died with me. Chances of having children, a husband, the white picket fences…the American dream. Now, I can't see at all. All those places I planned to go to, I can't even see the sights anymore." Caroline explains.

"Doesn't mean you should end your life." Stefan says.

"Why not? There's nothing else left."

"No Caroline," Stefan says sternly, grabbing her by the shoulders firmly to catch her attention, but really no one knows anymore if Caroline is paying attention to you or not, "There is _always_ a reason. Elena _needs_ you around, you are her best friend. Damon might not want to admit it _ever_ but he wouldn't want you dead either. Bonnie did so much to keep you alive. And I cannot have you dying on me, not now."

"Well I'm sorry if my death will cause an inconvenience then." Caroline remarks.

"Dammit Caroline! Don't you get it? We need you! We care about you. We love you. You are our light and you are our support. Don't you see if you were gone, we'd fall apart? I need you around. You're the closest thing to a close friend that I have…that is a good influence anyways, Klaus was never good to be honest." Stefan says.

Caroline's hand slowly reaches out towards Stefan's face before exploring the contours of his face under her palm, "Thank you." She whispers.

_Finally, the patient learns to __**accept**__ their fate. _

It had been over three months and Caroline had learnt Braille instantaneously – much to Elijah's pleasure – she had gotten used to walking around with a blind stick with the support of Elena and Bonnie and with the Salvatore brothers' help, her movement are more controlled and her reactions and reflexes are sharpened. She learnt to use her other amplified senses to help her with her self-defense and mundane activities. Every other day or so, Klaus would make an appearance and stay by her side on the bed at the middle of the night and entice her with stories of the world with implicit descriptions.

One night, while she is reading a book Elijah lent to her, she hears the swift gust of wind in her room and suddenly feels the bed sink. She can smell his scent and just about can almost see his aggravating smirk.

"Good evening sweetheart." Klaus says softly.

"You know, you should really stop making these visits frequently." Caroline stays indifferent to his abrupt entrance and continues reading the book.

"I got you something."

"Again Klaus? You know, if you feel guilty all you have to do is say sorry." Caroline quips but did not realize the effect of her words. The small shadow of a smile that was once on her face falls when all she hears is the taunting silence.

"Here," He hands her over one of his sketch books that is oddly thick and the pages were centimeters apart from each other, "Think of it as an apology gift then." Klaus remarks.

"And what of the other gifts? The scarf? The sun glasses? You were going to buy me a blind dog." Caroline says.

"I still can if you want."

"Enough with the gifts. Why are you doing this? If you want to visit me then fine, at least I don't die at the end of the night, but please just stop with the gifts. Why are you buying me all these things?" Caroline asks.

"It seems I am in debt to you—"

"Stop. Just stop. You are _not_ in debt to me. Jesus, having you '_fancy_' me is enough, having you in debt to me will be like a fly buzzing next to my ear constantly. I didn't save you because I wanted something in return Klaus." Caroline explains cutting Klaus off.

"Then why did you do it?" Klaus asks genuinely confused by her actions.

"Because I am not you," Klaus stares at her in bewilderment and she can feel his gaze boring into her, "I don't let people die nor do I kill. You may be the big bad hybrid and all but you are still a life, albeit a damned one, but a life."

"Was I really worth saving love? I've killed, maimed, murdered and created bloodsheds. Why would you save such a monster that could easily kill you right now?"

"If you were going to kill me you would've done it already. Also, I'm not one to judge who's to live or who's to die. If I let you die I'm no better than you then." Caroline explains. Klaus silently observes Caroline, shocked by her words. He had a mix of admiration and confusion storming inside of him as he watches her examine his sketch book.

"What on earth did you get me? Why is this sketch book so damn heavy?" Caroline asks, turning the sketch book at odd angles causing Klaus to scoff at her.

"They're special drawings love. Have a good time." Klaus says placing an abrupt kiss on the top of her head, taking in the sweet vanilla scent of her soft hair. He could hear her breath hitch and he could feel her body tense, but before she could speak he is gone within a blink of an eye.

"Freak." Caroline mutters but a tentative smile creeps up on her face. She opens the sketch book and she gasps when she realizes what he had created. He transformed his art into a three dimensional masterpiece. Klaus manipulated different angles and texture to create an art you can feel, an art that Caroline herself can _see_. Flipping through the pages is like jumping into an adventure, it is thrilling and exciting and she loved every bit of it. She closes the sketch book and unintentionally, lets out a soft giggle before breaking out into a Cheshire grin.

"Stupid Klaus." She mumbles before placing the sketch book next to her.

_le end _


End file.
